


Like in a spy story

by laughingpineapple



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: "Am I jealous of her or do I want to be her or do I want to kiss her" the ongoing saga, Bonding, Canon Trans Character, Crushes, Dancing, Friendship, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e12, Very much about Dale Cooper. As most things are when they are not about Laura Palmer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8776936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Audrey, Denise, dance roles, role models, arch-nemeses, songs on an old piano, the quality of being special, and the inevitable rite of passage the entire Great Northern was going through in those days.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveoftheimpossible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveoftheimpossible/gifts).



The foreign agent stopped in her tracks, biting the perfect red of her lipstick. Her eyes darted through the corridor - she knew she was being watched, but the wooden walls of the Great Northern grew like a forest all around her, silent and impenetrable. As she took a few tentative steps toward the stairs, she felt the sting of a stranger's gaze grow closer, bolder, until finally she could hear a muffled clicking of heels from inside the wall. A secret passage! She led her spy around until the planimetry of the place told her that she was in the clear and hid in waiting behind a column. One minute passed before she heard the same heels as before, not muffled now, growing closer, and she jumped out to tackle her stalker - tumbling in the middle of the hotel's dinner-slash-dancing hall with an armful of startled teenager.

 

Audrey couldn't say what she was expecting to achieve with that stakeout, or rather, she was trying not to think about it too hard, but being caught in her target's firm grip and suddenly thrust under the spotlight of the hall’s attention was most assuredly not part of the plan. But being a pureblood Horne, her next move was set, ingrained in the deep, oiled mechanisms of three generations of incessant social manoeuvring: she guided the agent's arm on her shoulder, put on a customary, distant smile and danced with her to the notes of Trudy's piano. The hall relaxed. Catherine Martell's echo from the previous week’s accident ghosted on her toes. Doesn't she always. Bitch.

 

“Come on, darling”, Agent Bryson laughed, her voice as soft as her posture now that she'd recognized her assailant as the crown princess of this place. “What's with the territorial hunt? I'm pushing prime cougar age, but you? You're a baby leopard, a caracal, the prettiest fennec…”

If the world hadn't noticed, Audrey was _just_ done telling to herself that she did _not_ want to think about this too hard. But no, of course, she had to ask, with a spark of dogged curiosity in her eyes that must come in bundle with the badge. She also stepped on her foot. Which was a most foreseeable outcome, after about a minute of waiting for Audrey's lead about as much as Audrey was waiting for hers, but it wouldn't have happened with Agent Cooper, or in a movie, or both, which proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the situation here could not compare (it would not have happened to Agent Bryson and Agent Cooper, either, but _that_ movie got cancelled).

Audrey tilted her head.

“Remind me - who is doing the honors?”

Someone here had to switch role - or at least step off her foot.

With a noncommittal shrug, Denise tapped the point of Audrey's nose in a spell-binding _stay here for one moment, be right back._ She made her way to the piano, where trusted old Trudy was mashing keys to the tune of “Fly me to the moon”, whispered a few words in her ear and slipped a banknote under the sheet music. By the time her dance partner had blinked a few times and fully formulated the thought that bossing and bribing the hotel's employees was in fact, excuse her, her own goddamn job, the tune had changed and - one, two, cha-cha-cha - Denise was sashaying back solo and inviting Audrey to very well do the same, so much for leads, follows and all the trappings of partner dance.

 

“With that inconvenience out of the way… remind me, what were you doing looking through holes in the wall?”

Her whisper carried the tension of a climactic showdown: the foreign spy, having laid her web of intrigues all across town (or at least the hotel, or at least room 315), confronts the only young operative smart enough to have figured out her game. Agent Bryson was beautiful with her head cocked like that, reaching out to speak to her in the middle of a spot turn. Her laid-back smile and well-practised assertiveness graced her with a radiance under the Great Northern’s chandeliers that was just her own. The bar had been raised and Audrey would have to step up to the challenge.

“I want to become a special agent!” Side step.

“How's that for charming! Well well, girl, first thing is, you've got to be special!” Turn to the left.

“I am!” What, she didn't notice? In some circles, it would be enforceable as a capital offense.

“And that's the spirit!”

 

Upon further consideration, this sounded disconcertingly like an encouragement.

 

The bar had, indeed, been raised so high that Audrey had to wonder if that woman, with her drawled laughter that seemed to contain only the purest wonder for humanity in all its infinite contrasts, ever even noticed they were rivals. If she had, she would also have to have developed the thickest skin and an admirable poker face, which was, Audrey supposed, par for the course.

When Denise followed up with the obvious question and inquired about the reasons why she wanted to be a special agent, Audrey knew that she couldn't give up her secret, that residual, fermented dream of a tall, dark and handsome stranger whisking her away from that oppressive trap of a town. It was her hope, and hers alone, for a little while still - just yesterday she thought she could give it up, when she saw Agent Bryson and Agent Cooper effortlessly relating to each other as professionals and peers, cocooned away in an adult world that suddenly felt airtight and out of reach. It was why she kissed him on her way out: it's what you do with dreams, you stand on tiptoes and kiss them goodbye. But the taste of his soft lips under hers wasn't leaving, so for now she did what a girl had to do, juggling heartbreak and a rapidly crumbling life along with vague plans for a future filled with glamour, Martinis and high-stake chases.

This was nobody's business but her own. The other force that pushed her forward, on the other hand… that one could be shared. Its steely, bitter taste would be on everyone's lips soon enough, anyway.

“I want to beat my nemesis.” Keep a secret for the next week or so, will you? But the woman felt reliable, and with her drug-busting business over she would be out of town before anyone, especially her father, had the time to blink. “Expose him, right his wrongs and drive far away from here in a fast black car.”

“Sounds... legitimate.”

 

The song's end was followed by a short applause from three elderly guests, who then requested a good old waltz like they played back in the day. “Geezers. Do you think one of them will ever manage to talk about waltz without humming the first bars of The Blue Danube?”

Denise shrugged, lost in thought. Had Audrey struck a chord? Where did she run away from in a fast car? The words _I can't believe you were ever my age_ were coming up easy on her tongue, but the deja vu would give her vertigo. So they moved to a table, got two cokes, and when Denise spoke again, the topic was college, and big cities, bright, fast and alluring, and nemeses, which are a thing that happens to the best of us. Then beauty marks, and what the Chinese had to say about them - near the eyebrow, as far as Denise could remember, meant wealth, intelligence, creativity and strained relationships with family members, which sounded about right. And then Dale Cooper, whom Denise remembered from several years back as the awkward, green, weird agent who saved her life with a submachine gun and grenades, the exact number of which was lost to the mists of time. When she met him again the other day, she concluded, she was charmed to attest that hey, one out of three still applied.

 

Here's one for vertigo: in the distant past she evoked, her special agent was already ahead of her now. The distance between them grew fixed points, each one as unreachable as the previous: no matter how fast she tried to play catch up, she would remain the Achilles to a distant tortoise. And this is why she would rather have math stay the hell away from her life.

 

The other half of her family legacy eventually caught up with her. It wasn't intended - sounding like Sylvia never was. Marking her territory, propping herself up with the weight of her connections (because clearly, the anecdote she was telling would have suffered from failing to mention that her friend's husband was a rich neuropsychologist with several papers to his name) only ever managed to make her mother sound crass, sad and worst of all transparent, and yet. Her she was, listening to her own voice add to an altogether pleasant conversation that - in case Denise hadn't noticed - she, too, had free access to Dale Cooper's room.

The older woman grinned, like she'd been waiting for that particular penny to drop.

“You too, eh?”

“Too?” Audrey bit her lip. Where was their newfound truce going?

“Baby, let's play a game. It's called _Who in this room did not develop a soul-rending crush on Dale Cooper_ and the rules are very simple, you look around and tell me who in this room did not develop a soul-rending crush on Dale Cooper…”

Admittedly, that got a chuckle out of her. She must have had this coming - she did, after all, see her go up to the man himself and kiss him in a fit of frustration, and waiting for Audrey to bring up the topic herself before roasting her was a nice gesture. Maybe even respectful. Like Cooper was.

“That married woman there looks happy with her husband…”

“And that has stopped anyone since when? She took a photo of him the other day, for keepsake once they check out of here.”

This warranted an indignant gasp: “Agent Bryson!”

“Speaking of pictures of our golden boy, look, that girl in the corner with the expensive camera plans to sell hers. A thriving business, I'm sure. But she is gonna keep the best one for herself.”

“What about the man carrying an oar?”

“You can tell by the way he cuddles his coffee. You know he didn't do it before coming here.”

“Don't tell me that the waltz geezers…”

“...are reminded of the movie stars of yesteryear. Hard as it may be to believe, all that hair wax was fashionable at some point in human history.”

“It can't be the woman painting a deer either, she has just ordered her third slice of cherry pie…”

“...and the boy with a crutch just has _those_ stars in his eyes. You know the ones.”

 

Yes, yes she did. They went on to point at Trudy, at Louie over in the corridor, at each other, at the very furniture of the hall. Denise's laughter was genuine - Audrey found out that so was hers. From the very beginning, her love for her special agent had been secluded and pure, blossoming in a bubble shared just by the two of them, inebriating, ultimately suffocating. This was a breach. The world was seeping in. Audrey could breathe.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! I wanted a new (not!Coop) pov to focus on Denise so I picked dear Audrey... conveniently enough, they share a scene that could really do with an aftermath, so here's an attempt at said aftermath. I hope I managed to capture at least some of Denise's incredible charisma!


End file.
